Not Much to Share

I haven't been doing a LOT of stitching lately, but do have a little bit to share with you. I've joined Cheri Payne's Friendship Group on Facebook and have been sewing the quilt blocks that she has posted there. Here's my progress so far. I'm sure there will be some wool applique added at some point - she never fails to disappoint with her designs. These are 4" blocks.

Someone in that group shared a photo of a simple little quilt that I've tried to reproduce below without a pattern. The wool applique makes for good stitching while watching TV in the evenings. This quilt measures about 15" square.

I'm also following along with the Temecula QAL and my blocks are shown below.

I found a backing fabric for my daughter's quilt that she likes. The loud floral is a fun counterpoint to the strict geometric shapes on the front. I have all the layers pin basted together now and it's ready to be quilted.

Last weekend we helped my son & his family move back to our area after his job disappeared in the oil fields. So happy to have them close-by again. Haven't had a hook in my hand since finishing the chicken rug so I need to get busy and decide on what I'll do next. Just finished reading this new book by Kate Morton. She's become one of my favorite authors and this story didn't disappoint!

Hooked Rugs & Wool

My friend Clydene, who blogs at Skunk Hollow, bought a small ranch a couple years ago and she has fallen madly in love with her chickens. I decided to hook her a chicken rug to celebrate her new passion. It took me a little over a week to make and I delivered it to her recently. I think she liked it!

I used a pattern that was made available to me as a member of Lori's Facebook Group - The Out of Hand Rug Hookers - a few months ago.

Added a border around the center oval and included a few scrappy tongues on the edges.  The finished size is about 19" x 24". Not too big and not too small.

Last week I met with the Salt Lake group of rug hookers. Nancy had made progress on the runner she is making for the top of her little telephone table. The purple/pink section will be the center of the rug and it will be symetrical on either end. Unusual for her to not have any red in her rug since that's her favorite color! I think these dark pastels are so great for a primitive spring rug.

Myra's pumpkin is coming along nicely - she has plans to hook the leaves in gorgeous fall colors of orange, red, yellow & purple.

I also had my 1st Tuesday group meeting and there was some great show & tell there. Coralee is working on this floral with a wonderful eggplant purple background.

She showed us the results of a dye session she had recently done - this is her confetti dyeing.....

....and this is what she got by dyeing with avacado pits. Not a great photo, but the color is kind of fleshy toned.

Tonia was working on a new rug - she was inspired by a vintage piece of carved wood - can't remember what it was exactly, but it's going to be gorgeous.

Here a little more detail on one of the birds. Go check out her blog to see a great makeover she did on a thrift store recipe box combined with paint and punch needle - awesome!

Marliss is making great progress on this Sharon Smith design inspired by Aboriginal Australian Art.

And Michelle showed us a Maggie B bee skep she has been working on.

As always - I totally enjoyed meeting with these two group of gals to talk & hook & visit & eat for a few hours. I'm thankful that they allow me to share their work here on my blog so you can enjoy seeing what we're doing here in Utah.

Update

I'm making good progress on the modern quilt I'm making for DD#2. The top is sewn into two halves - which I had to lay out on the living room floor since it's bigger than my design wall.

And the foundation  papers are ready to be removed - a good thing to do while watching TV in the evening.

I drew my own pattern for the 8" blocks and printed them on inexpensive paper I got from the dollar store.

My rug hooking friend Lauren informed me last week that I had won a secret giveaway on her blog and this beautiful pendant arrived in my mailbox yesterday. The center is filled with a small piece of beautiful vintage wool paisley in my favorite color RED! I look forward to wearing this for a long time Lauren - thank so much!

Holiday Weekend

We don't often leave town on a holiday weekend, but made an exception this time because of the horrible inversion & pollution we've been experiencing here the last week or two. Hubby & I drove with DD#2 and her family five hours south to sunshine, blue skies and warm temperatures - it was perfect! We explored & hiked & swam & ate out and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Here are a couple of things I saw that during our travels that caught my attention. We stopped at Cove Fort which has been restored to resemble pioneer times and I loved seeing this hooked rug in one of the rooms. Rug hooking was a colonial craft and not a pioneer craft, but it was still fun to see this on the floor of a bedroom there.

Here's a close up of part of the floral diamond.

And we saw a barn star on the side of a house that was nice - not seen very often in this part of the country - I'd like to make one for my home someday.

I've been very busy working on a new quilt for DD#2 - she chose the pattern & the colors - I chose the fabrics. Each block is paper pieced in two sections. Each star is formed by sewing four blocks together, so the entire quilt needed to be laid out before I started any of the sewing.

Lots of trimming involved...

Last week when I met with my rug group there was some great show & tell. Nancy had started a new table runner - it will be symmetrical and placed on a small telephone table in her home.

She just had a bit of yarn whipping left to do on this cute piece that she began & finished since our meeting a month ago.

Myra is hooking a pumpkin rug for a friend with vibrant orange colors.

Yvonne is working on a rug that is in a Pat Cross book (if I remember correctly)

It's good to be home!

Blackbirds and Berries

I first shared this new rug a few posts back. It's totally finished now and I think it turned out to be one of my all time favorites! I adapted a quilt design from Kim Diehl's book titled Homestyle Quilts. The size is 22" x 25".

Below is a picture of the quilt in the book.

You can see that I totally changed the border and I got the inspiration for that part from a coloring book I received for Christmas. You can see the arrow in this photo pointing out the part that I adapted.

I had a bit of trouble finding wool yarn the right color to whip the edges, but finally tracked down some Paternyan at a local shop - couldn't be better! It cost quite a bit more than I usually spend, but it was totally worth it to me.

Yesterday I stopped at an antique sale and was surprised to find a hooked rug for sale - they don't show up often in this part of the country! It looked like the maker used silky fabrics instead of wool to make this with. I forgot to ask the price - thought that would have been interesting to know....

The back was finished nicely too.

Now I need to figure out what my next rug hooking project will be. Till then, I'll begin making a new lap quilt for DD#2. She needs one to snuggle under while watching TV in the basement where it gets a bit chilly. This one is very modern and it'll be interesting to work on something so far outside my normal color and style. I know she'll love it when it's done so it'll be worth it!

Show & Tell

Yesterday I met with the 1st Tuesday Rug Group and there was some really good show & tell. Several of the gals had recently learned to do needlepunch, so they brought their projects. Jeanette jumped right in with a big design that was so cute in the frame she had. I always love seeing this motif of stacked animals - so whimsical! She was working on a penny rug while we were there but my camera battery died before I could take a picture of it - sorry 'bout that!

Sharon has a real affection for small pebbles, and used one to mount a miniature punched heart onto. I sat next to her for three hours, and totally forgot to get a picture of the project she was working on - she was punching a vintage aqua canning jar with flowers in it - very soft muted colors and so pretty!

And Coralee was punching a floral pattern she found for free on the internet.

Victoria has finished hooking a Halloween rug - you can find the pattern on Tonia's website HERE.

She also showed us an adorable hat that she had knitted with sheep on it.

And she was doing the embroidery for a Crabapple Hill quilt pattern - her stitches are perfection!

Sandy recently got a new dining room table and is making six hooked pads for the chairs. The background wool she is using is so yummy - and we all loved the beaded edge she used.

I'll end with some fun news. Before Christmas I attended a Home Tour and shared pictures with you of a quilter's home that I absolutely loved. I was sad because she wasn't at home that day and I didn't get to meet her. Well, some of you left comments suggesting that I write her a note, so that's just what I did and I included my email address and phone number in case she was interested in contacting me. Imagine my delight when I got an email from her awhile later. We met for lunch a couple weeks ago and struck up a new friendship - we're planning a day of shopping in the near future and I'm really looking forward to it!

I'm busy whipping the edge of my hooked rug and will share a photo in a day or two when it's totally finished.

English Paper Piecing

Just about a year ago, the Temecula Quilt Co started a sewalong on their blog for making fussy cut six pointed stars using English Paper Piecing. You can find their tutorial HERE. I jumped on the band wagon and have enjoyed every minute of it, although I'm much slower than they are. It's been fun to look at pieces of fabric in a different way to see if it will work for this technique. So far, I have made about 100 of these stars - my stack is pictured below.

After awhile, I started thinking about how I was going to sew these all together, and that's when my problems began. I tried the version below for twenty or so blocks and then began wondering if I really liked them this way - maybe too busy?

And so I've looked at a couple other versions. For this one I would applique the stars to a background square and then sew them all together with sashing between the blocks. I think this would make the largest quilt.

The one shown below would have the stars connected with large hexies. It would require purchasing a lot more of the pre-cut paper pieces and sheesh that's getting expensive! I'm not loving the background fabric - I think it needs to be a little lighter - ivory maybe?  Anyway, I wonder if you all could help me out by discussing which one you like better - or perhaps suggest another version that I haven't shared here.

Anyway, my Dad's wife has a birthday tomorrow. I started this project for her LAST year and it got derailed by something-or-another, but it's finished now and has already arrived at their house in California. I fussy cut the floral fabric in the center and added hexie borders around that. I had intended for it to be a table runner, but the more I thought about it I decided it could also be used over the back of her wing back chair, or under the TV, or on her dresser. It will be interesting to see where she likes it best.

And looky here Kyle - your good influence has rubbed off on me so I made a fun little label for the back!

Last week I met with the Salt Lake Rug Group and everyone had projects in the last phase of completion to show. Yvonne machine quilted the triangle blocks on this beautiful quilt, and was hand quilting diagonal lines in the border - such a great design with the wool applique.

Nancy was whipping the edge of her rug with yarn.

And Myra showed us her finished floral that just needed a good pressing and edge finish.